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Friday, September 16, 2016

Hillary Clinton: The International Neocon Warmonger by Webster G. Tarpley

Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy for President of the United States.
While the European press showers her with praise without thinking, Webster G.
Tarpley recalls her balance sheet:in all circumstances, she supported war and
corporate interests.

As the National Journal reported in 2014, even the pathetically weak anti-war
left is not ready to reconcile with Hillary given her warmongering as Secretary
of State. And with good reason. Scratching just lightly beneath the surface of
Hillary Clinton’s career reveals the empirical evidence of her historic support
for aggressive interventions around the globe.

Beginning with Africa,Hillary defended the 1998 cruise missile strike on the
El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, destroying
the largest producer of cheap medications for treating malaria and tuberculosis
and provided over 60% of available medicine in Sudan. In 2006 she supported
sending United Nations troops to Darfur with logistical and technical support
provided by NATO forces. Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was outspoken in his
condemnation of this intervention, claiming it was not committed out of concern
for Sudanese people but “…for oil and for the return of colonialism to the
African continent.”

This is the same leader who was murdered in the aftermath of the 2011 NATO
bombing of Libya; an attack promoted and facilitated with the eager support of
Mrs. Clinton. In an infamous CBS news interview, said regarding this
international crime: “We came, we saw, he died.” As Time magazine pointed out
in 2011, the administration understood removing Qaddafi from power would allow
the terrorist cells active in Libya to run rampant in the vacuum left behind.
Just last month the New York Times reported that Libya has indeed become a
terrorist safe haven and failed state— conducive for exporting radicals through
“ratlines” to the conflict against Assad in Syria.

Hillary made prompt use of the ratlines for conflicts in the Middle East. In
the summer of 2012, Clinton privately worked with then CIA director and
subversive bonapartist David Petraeus on a proposal for providing arms and
training to death squads to be used to topple Syria just as in Libya. This
proposal was ultimately struck down by Obama, reported the New York Times in
2013, but constituted one of the earliest attempts at open military support for
the Syrian death squads.

Her voting record on intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq is well known and she
also has consistently called for attacking Iran. She even told Fareed Zakaria
the State Department was involved “behind the scenes” in Iran’s failed 2009
Green Revolution. More recently in Foreign Policy magazine David Rothkopf wrote
on the subject of the Lausanne nuclear accord, predicting a “snap-back” in
policy by the winner of the 2016 election to the foreign policy in place since
the 1980s. The title of this article? “Hillary Clinton is the Real Iran
Snap-Back.” This makes Hillary the prime suspect for a return to the madcap
Iranian policies that routinely threaten the world with a World War 3 scenario.

Hillary Clinton is not only actively aggressing against Africa and the Middle
East. She was one of the loudest proponents against her husband’s hesitancy
over the bombing of Kosovo, telling Lucina Frank: “I urged him to bomb,” even
if it was a unilateral action.

While no Clinton spokesperson responded to a request by the Washington Free
Beacon regarding her stance on Ukraine, in paid speeches she mentioned “putting
more financial support into the Ukrainian government”. When Crimea decided to
choose the Russian Federation over Poroshenko’s proto-fascist rump state,
Hillary anachronistically called President Putin’s actions like “what Hitler
did in the ‘30s.” As a leader of the bumbled ”reset” policy towards Russia,
Hillary undoubtedly harbors some animus against Putin and will continue the
destabilization project ongoing in Ukraine.

Not content with engaging in debacles in Eastern Europe, she has vocally argued
for a more aggressive response to what she called the “rollback of democratic
development and economic openness in parts of Latin America.” This indicates
her willingness to allow the continuation of CIA sponsored efforts at South
American destabilization in the countries of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Argentina and Brazil.

It is one of the proud prerogatives of the Tax Wall Street Party to push out
into the light the Wall Street and foundation-funded Democrats. The final blow
to Hillary’s clumsy façade comes directly from arch-neocon Robert Kagan. Kagan
worked as a foreign policy advisor to Hillary along with his wife, Ukraine
madwoman Victoria Nuland, during Hillary’s term as Secretary of State. He
claimed in the New York Times that his view of American foreign policy is best
represented in the “mainstream” by the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton; a
foreign policy he obviously manipulated or outright crafted. Kagan stated: “If
she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue…it’s something that might
have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it
that; they are going to call it something else.” What further reason could any
sane person need to refute Hillary? A vote for Hillary is a vote for the
irrational return to war.

The “Giant Sucking Sound”: Clinton Gave US NAFTA and Other Free Trade Sellouts

“There is no success story for workers to be found in North America 20 years
after NAFTA,” states AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Unlike other failures of
his Presidency, Bill Clinton can not run from NAFTA. It was Vice President Al
Gore, not a veto-proof Republican congress, who lobbied to remove trade
barriers with low-wage Mexico.

The record of free trade is clear. Multinational corporations and Wall Street
speculators realize incredible profits, wages remain stagnant in the US,
poverty persists in the developing world, and the remaining industrial
corporations in America and Canada are increasingly owned by Chinese, Indian
and other foreign interests.

America’s free trade policy is upside down. Besides Canada, Australia and
Korea, most of our “free” trade partners are low-wage sweatshop paradises like
Mexico, Chile, Panama, Guatemala, Bahrain and Oman. The US does in fact apply
tariffs on most goods and on most nations of origin – rates are set by the US
International Trade Commission (USTIC), a quasi-public federal agency.

Since a German- or Japanese-made automobile would under USITC’s schedule be
taxed 10% upon importation, Volkswagen and Toyota can circumvent taxation by
simply building their auto assembly plants for the US market in Mexico. In
Detroit, an auto assembly worker is paid between $14 and $28/hour,
($29,120-$58,240/yr); hard work for modest pay. In Mexico, the rate varies from
$2-5/hour.

In China, all automobile imports regardless of origin are tariffed as high as
25%. This allows the Chinese to attract joint ventures with Volkswagen and
Toyota, and to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “keep the jobs, the cars and the
money.”

NAFTA-related job loss is not a question of productivity, currency
manipulation, “fair trade,” environmental standards, etc. While these issues
are not trivial, free trade – as Lincoln’s advisor Henry C. Carey proved – is a
matter of simple accounting. Can an American family survive on $4,160/year
($2/hr)? If not, cars and their components will be built in Mexico. If we want
cars built in the United States, the only solution is a general tariff (import
tax) reflecting the difference between those wage standards, like the very
tariffs repealed by Bill Clinton.

In the United States the “runaway shop” under NAFTA and CAFTA has sent trade
deficits and unemployment soaring while wages drop relative to the cost of
living. Yet Mexico and other “partners” receive no benefit either. Many
manufacturing sectors in Mexico pay wages lower than the equivalent sector in
China. Mexico is now the world leader in illegal narcotics exportation and
weapons importation. The poverty level between 1994 and 2009 remained virtually
identical. (52.4% – 52.3%). The shipping of raw materials to Mexico comprise
the majority of so called American “exports”. The finished products from these
exports are assembled and sold back to the United States at slave labor prices.

Don’t expect Hillary to behave differently with the coming “Trans-Pacific
Partnership,” which seeks to replace an ascendant China with less-developed
Vietnam and Malaysia. Vietnam would overtake India-allied Bangladesh in the
global apparel trade, and Malaysia has a high-tech manufacturing sector poised
to rival China’s. With America’s manufacturing economy in shambles, the Clinton
machine can now be redirected to geopolitical maneuvers. Continue reading Not
the Lesser of Two Evils: Why Hillary Clinton Is Unfit for the Presidency.

Webster G. Tarpley

Webster G. Tarpley
Webster G. Tarpley Historian, journalist and analyst of US foreign policy. His
most recent published work is Surviving the Cataclysm: Your Guide Through the
Worst Financial Crisis in Human History (Progressive Press, 2011).

assange

At midday on Friday 5 February, 2016 Julian Assange, John Jones QC, Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzon will be speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club on the decision made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the Assange case.